


392. when blood meets water

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [220]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 03:57:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9582476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: “You scared?” Sarah says, tilting her head just a little to watch Helena from the corner of her eye. It’s a new moon – no moonlight – but Helena’s eyes have adjusted enough to catch mockery in the corners of Sarah’s face.Helena thinks:yes. Yes, I’m afraid.Helena says: “No.” She heads into the cave.





	

“We’ll be fine,” Sarah says, as the two of them pick their way over the rocks. Below them the ocean is sweeping in and out, hushing itself as it goes. There are Things in the water. Helena knows they’re there. When the tide is just right Helena can smell them. She can hear them singing just at the edges of her hearing.

“Sarah,” she says, but Sarah is already too far away to hear – and the sea is quieting her, _shh, shh,_ so Helena doesn’t give its secrets up. She follows Sarah over the rocks. Her feet slide, skittering, nervous. She can’t get a grip. At any second she could fall.

“Found it,” Sarah says, sounding satisfied. Helena slides down a seaweed-slippery curve and finds Sarah crouched in front of the entrance of a cave.

“ _Sarah_ ,” she says again.

“You scared?” Sarah says, tilting her head just a little to watch Helena from the corner of her eye. It’s a new moon – no moonlight – but Helena’s eyes have adjusted enough to catch mockery in the corners of Sarah’s face.

Helena thinks: _yes. Yes, I’m afraid._

Helena says: “No.” She heads into the cave.

“Oi, I’m goin’ first,” Sarah says, shoving Helena to the side and heading deeper. She rummages in her pocket for a lighter, flicks it with her thumb a few times until it grudgingly lights. It illuminates Sarah’s face and nothing else. The walls of the cave are so dark, and so cold, and so tall. There are Things in the water, Sarah, and they are so lonely. Sarah’s face the only light in all that dark.

Helena catches up, because she doesn’t want to be left behind. She trails her fingers along the wall as they go; the cold stone eats all the warmth from her fingertips, until she can vividly feel her own bones under her skin. She can see her breath. She can’t see Sarah’s breath. She wonders.

“I heard people died here,” Sarah says happily, because this is the sort of thing that excites Sarah; Sarah likes sitting on the roof with her feet dangling off the edge, just in case she falls. Sarah drinks too much and kisses too many people and woke Helena up in the middle of the night to tell her to come to the sea. Death is sitting down the bar from Sarah, and Sarah won’t stop ordering it drinks. Stupid girl. Helena loves her, and often wishes that she didn’t.

“Why are we going then,” she says. “I don’t want to die.”

“ _We’re_ not gonna die,” Sarah says, and then adds “that was ages ago” like it’s evidence. She takes Helena’s silence as a sign to keep talking and does as they go deeper. Her voice echoes terribly off the walls, too high and too thin.

“There were these kids,” she says. “They went in deep and they never came back out. I heard when the wind blows you can still hear ‘em screaming.”

Helena can hear _something_ , when the wind blows. Can Sarah not hear it? If Sarah can’t hear it, it’s probably not real.

“ _We_ are kids,” she points out. “I am a kid. I am a tired kid who would like to go back to bed, please, and not go deeper into the cave where there is death.”

“Bed,” she adds sensibly, “has blankets, and chocolate under the pillow.”

“That’s just your bed, meathead,” Sarah says, “and you’ve gotta get rid of that, you’re gonna bring bugs ‘n shite.” She completely ignores the rest of what Helena said. The floor is wet under Helena’s feet, and her boots stick just a little too long every time she puts her foot down. Oh, she wants to go home. Oh, oh, oh she wants to go home.

The cave opens up abruptly and without warning. Sarah holds her lighter up and they can see: nothing. But Helena can hear the water murmuring to itself. There must be a pool. Maybe it connects to the sea. Maybe something smelled them, out by the water, and maybe even now it’s swimming through a tunnel towards them—

“Shit,” Sarah hisses. Something splashes. The lighter goes out.

“Sarah?” Helena says. No answer. “Sarah?”

She closes her eyes. It can’t make anything any worse. When she closes her eyes she can see the shape of her thoughts, slow animals circling underwater. Some of those thoughts have teeth. Some of them are small enough to be eaten alive.

“Sarah,” Helena calls again, and there’s no answer. Helena walks a step forward. And another step forward.

The water doesn’t feel that cold, once you get used to it. Helena, eyes closed, keeps on walking deeper.

**Author's Note:**

> ...and then they both got eaten by a BIG SEA MONSTER! :O
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed!


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